Rise Sister Rise

by Rebecca Campbell

  When to be of service to the world

  And when to be of service to myself.

  And so it is. And so it is. And so it is.

  BE OK WITH WHERE YOU ARE

  You do not need to be anywhere other than where you are right now. You do not need anything other than what you have right now. Don’t spend your time striving to be somewhere else. Instead, focus on where you are. Life is always leading us, but we cannot hear Her call if we do not ground ourselves in the current moment.

  If you are thinking of the future so much, by the time you get to it, you’ll be thinking of another future. So all of the hard work and sacrifices you are putting into getting to the future won’t be enjoyed because the bar will always be rising. Celebrate your creations when they happen. Take a moment to breathe and truly enjoy them.

  What good is a creation or a success if you

  do not allow yourself to enjoy it?

  Don’t keep pushing the finishing line back mid-run. Be OK with where you are. For where you are is where Life is. And if you are constantly looking at the next thing you are not truly flowing with Life.

  If where you are is uncomfortable, be in the uncomfortable. If where you are is exciting, be with the excitement. If where you are is in grief, be with the grief. All moments will end. Don’t miss them or drag them out by not being present with where you are today.

  RISE SISTER RISE

  How are you striving to be somewhere

  other than where you are right now?

  How can you be more OK with where you are today?

  CREATE FOR YOU AND YOU ALONE

  Once you birth your creations in the world they are no longer yours. Just like a child that you have nurtured into adulthood, your creations have a life, seasons and a purpose of their own. And as hard as it may be, you must let them fulfill it on their own.

  It doesn’t matter what people think or what happens once you release them into the world. All that matters is that what started as a seed has been set free to be whatever it was always destined to be. You have no control over how people will receive your creations. But never forget:

  Far more people regret not creating

  than they do actually creating.

  The tighter you cling and hold on to your creations, the harder it will be ever to create again. Don’t read the reviews, don’t look at the sales figures. Just know that you gave it all that you could, celebrate, take a break, and get ready to create something new.

  The best artists and creators are the ones that would do what they do regardless of the outcome. They are not attached to what their creations will bring them. And much more focused on the magic of creation.

  Once you start out it’s easy to look at your heroine and be attached to manifesting what their creations have attracted. To fall in love with the life rather than the work. Once you start getting successful it’s also easy to expect all that comes with it. However, as artists and creators this is a slippery slope, for the bar will always continue to rise and fall. Your best work may be rejected and overlooked. Your worst may be celebrated.

  Neither is your business. Having your sense of worth or success attached to it would be a big mistake. Huge.

  Instead, show up and create because that is what you were put on this planet to do. Show up and create because you love the smell of paint. Show up and create because symmetrical websites make you feel more balanced yourself. Show up and create because it lights you up more than anything else. Show up and create because sharing your story calms your inner crazy.

  If you are doing anything for the recognition or the validation or the fame then you are doing it for the wrong reason. It is your separateness that is seeking the validation and this is a thirst that can never be quenched. Either stop what you are doing or find a way to reframe.

  Every time you show up to create, you are devoting yourself to something bigger. Every time you create you get to know yourself a little bit better. A call is something that chooses us. Rising to answer it is a sacred thing. It is not about you. You are a mere note in the Universe’s song. You may get recognition for doing what is yours to do, or, you might be called to do it with no recognition at all. One is not better than the other. Focus on playing your note as best you can and forget about how many people are listening, how many people think you sound sweet and how many people think you sound off. Play your note anyway and allow the breath of the Universe to exhale through you. In doing so you will discover that letting your self be sung is reward enough. If not, time to find something else.

  Find a way to breathe life into your bravest creations today. When you put your creations out there you run the risk of being judged. And the better and more cutting-edge the work, the more it will be judged – by those who are not ready for it or misunderstand it or project their stuff onto it. All of that is out of your hands. So if you want to be successful or just a great artist, get ready to be judged. The more successful you are, or unique or courageous you are with your creations, the more people will project their stuff onto you. Their opinions actually have nothing to do with you. Everything in life is subjective, most of all something as intangible as art.

  When I worked in advertising I was so attached to the outcome of what my bosses thought of my creations. I would present idea after idea, only to be devastated when they were rejected – scrunched up and thrown in the trash in front of me. My response to one particular Creative Director continued this way until I finally learned to be detached from his opinion and instead enjoy the process of creating.

  The best teachers, like artists, are OK with not being

  liked. They create because they love creating.

  RISE SISTER RISE

  What creations are you being called to create right now?

  Why do you want to create them?

  Whose approval are you attached to?

  What outcome are you attached to?

  DON’T BELIEVE YOUR OWN PR

  ‘I have already settled it for myself so flattery and

  criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.’

  GEORGIA O’KEEFFE

  ‘Don’t believe your own PR.’ That’s what my teacher Sonia told me at the beginning of my career. Thank God for good teachers.

  Don’t let someone else’s opinion of you be any way linked to your opinion of yourself. If you attach your identity and worth to what others say, feel, do, or think, you are setting yourself up for a hefty fall. And eventually, you will fall, that is a guarantee. For if you are attached to the good things people say about you, you are attached to the bad things they say about you too.

  When I first started doing intuitive readings I was attached to the outcome of them going really well, of getting it right, of creating a considerable shift in my clients. My need for validation was getting in the way of simply being a clear channel. My identity as an intuitive was attached to other people’s opinions. I wanted so much to help others that I attached my sense of value to what other people thought.

  At first this worked fine, because the feedback was great. I’d read the emails of flowing feedback and felt so good about my work. But eventually, after more than one hundred happy clients I had one who was not. This person would turn out to be one of my biggest teachers. In one fell swoop my sense of self and value as an intuitive guide was shattered. It took some serious uprooting, but eventually I found a way to draw my sense of self unwaveringly from within.

  This is extremely difficult in a world of likes, retweets, comparison, and followers. How often do you reach for your phone and get a little rush from how much validation the outside world has given you? It is often said that fame and approval are the most addictive drugs of all.

  The lovers are out there and the haters are too. Let it all be background noise to the voice that bellows from deep within you. The more you do what you are called to do, the more haters will appear. If you believe your fans then you will believe your critics too. But, if you draw your sense of self from
deep within, then you can just get on with doing the work that you were put on this planet to do.

  RISE SISTER RISE

  Are you attached to what people think of you (good or bad)?

  How can you draw your sense of self from within?

  YOU DON’T NEED SAVING

  Your soul can be calling you to rise up every moment of every day but without daily action all of those calls are useless. In fact, without daily action those daily calls are frustrating! If you are going to listen to the calls of your soul you must ACT on them.

  We are mostly fifth-dimensional spiritual beings having a third-dimensional human experience. We create our tomorrow by our intentions and actions today. The more in touch with your intuition you are, the easier it is to tune in to future possibilities that are aligning to you.

  A common mistake of the highly conscious is that the moment we see the potential outcome – for example a relationship, job, money, etc. – we stop acting, in the belief that because we have had the vision or the confirmation it is coming. But when we receive a vision it is actually the potential we are tapping into, not the third-dimensional reality of the manifestation in action. And when it doesn’t come, we get frustrated and confused because we were so sure it was coming, which it was, but the moment we assumed it was coming we stopped acting. That is, WE intuited the manifestation (i.e. a job) but the moment we intuited it, we stopped doing what was necessary to ground that thing into physical form (through daily grounded action).

  No matter how ‘spiritual’ or ‘intuitive’ we are, remember that while we are in our human suits, third-dimensional rules apply. So ground your dreams through daily action. That way, you can ensure that you spend your time actually living your dreams rather than dreaming about them.

  As you step closer to what you want, what

  you want is stepping closer to you.

  I meet so many aspiring writers, teachers, and artists who are praying for a lucky break. They’ve had a vision, or an intuitive told them that they will write a book, and now they are waiting for someone to be their knight in shining armor to open doors and make things happen for them. But in doing this they are putting their power in an external force rather than becoming an energetic match for the thing they want. What’s more they are often so attached to the outcome and what it will bring them or say about them that it stops them from actually taking action to create it.

  You must make the first steps. Every act you do in devotion to what is rising in you, the closer you get. Perhaps your savior is a business mentor who will take your career to the next level, a publisher that will share your voice, or an agent with connections. Don’t wait for some external force to come along before you step up and rise. Start creating it for yourself now.

  If you are yearning to be rescued you are giving away your power to the very thing you are trying to call in. You are stating very clearly to the Universe that you need saving, which the Universe registers as NEEDING. Meaning you are NOT READY to receive it or hold it in your field. The longer you stay in this needing and waiting state, the longer you will continue not being a vibrational match for the very thing that you are still waiting for.

  If there is something you long for, do it because it lights you up and lose yourself in the doing. Don’t wait for the end result before you consider taking the next step. If you don’t know how to get to where you are going, start building your own bridge. Your soul is always calling you but without daily action those calls will continue to be calls.

  RISE SISTER RISE

  What is your soul calling you toward right now?

  What simple action can you take to ground your dreams today?

  LIGHTWORKERS GOTTA WORK

  ‘Are you here to do the work or are you

  just wanting to look good?’

  KYLE GRAY

  If you don’t embody your work, people will feel it. Whether it is releasing a song, a piece of artwork, teaching, healing, or presenting in a meeting, it is not your words, concepts, or creations that people are drawn to, it is your devotion to it.

  Your ability to hold that message, creation, or vibration in your field. Your ability to truly embody and walk your talk.

  Your ability to work the light, not just market it.

  If you are called to write or teach or create or speak, if you are spending the majority of your time marketing what you do, you are missing the point. It is important that we don’t rush into being the biggest and the best, and so dilute the purity and potency of our mission in the process. Marketing should come last. Focus on your devotion to the craft. If your focus is not on your craft you will not find the work that is unique to you or the ancient wisdom that is waiting for you to tap into. Don’t be another packaged-up version of what already exists.

  The world needs more artists, seers, medicine women

  and healers, midwives, encouragers, visionaries.

  It doesn’t need more marketers. The world needs

  more people working their light, not wearing it.

  Don’t get swept up in the latest marketing models and get rich quick/quick fix schemes. You will likely lose yourself and your audiences’ respect in them. The old patriarchal sales models are dissolving away fast. We must forge our own systems and models and as feminine leaders we must do it in a way that is rooted in our feminine cyclic nature.

  In a world of information overload, people can tell if you truly embody what you are saying. With the huge surge of people going online now, there is so much grabbing energy. It’s exhausting. So many ‘clever marketing concepts,’ which are basically a regurgitation of the same thing. So much noise that doesn’t respect people’s inboxes as being sacred spaces. So much lifting of content, almost in a rush to put a stake in the ground. It’s exhausting and soul dampening. Don’t add to it.

  We must become Olympic athletes of devotion. Warriors of our craft. Servants of service. If you are to create a life’s work, not a season, you must devote yourself to your craft, not your marketing. Slow and steady always wins in the end. So build your creations with courageous potency, with clear intention, with unwavering focus, and with sacred intent. If you do this, when it comes time to set that creation free into the world, you will have gathered up enough energy so that its own light can fuel it.

  RISE SISTER RISE

  How are you being called to focus more on your craft?

  What are you doing that no longer feels authentic?

  What is yours to do?

  How can you bring more potency to your work?

  UNFOLLOW AND LEAD

  ‘Be a voice. Not an echo.’

  ALBERT EINSTEIN

  Don’t flood your newsfeed, or your life for that matter, with people that make you feel like you’re not doing enough. So many of my clients suffer from a constant feeling of comparison, competition, inadequacy, and feeling like time is running out.

  From our relationships to our business, our creative projects to our friendships, every single thing in our life goes through the four seasons. We are not meant to be in summer all year round. Everything is circular. The more you try to keep things the same, or keep up with some external measure, the more out of alignment and out of flow you will become.

  When someone else is in spring, you may be in

  winter. Both are important and equally necessary.

  Don’t deny yourself the proper time and nourishment

  necessary to live through each season.

  My client Alex unfollowed 90 percent of those on her social media feed, after noticing that the endless updates of all the awesome things her peers were doing was making her feel inadequate and not trust the season she was in. Soon, extra space was created within her, making way for an idea so groundbreaking and potent that it wouldn’t have been possible had she continued playing follow the leader.

  So if there are particular people you follow that trigger you into feeling like you are not doing enough or like time is running out, unfollow them with loving grace. Th
e less we consume, the more potent and unique what we have to share will become. Unfollowing can be a sacred act.

  RISE SISTER RISE

  Who on your newsfeed triggers you?

  What do they trigger in you?

  Who are you guided to unfollow so you

  can more effectively lead?

  DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU

  If you are constantly looking at what other people are doing, saying, and thinking, you won’t create anything significant because your sense of authenticity will be off, and most tragically you will miss the chance to create what is yours to create. Your purpose is different from anyone else’s out there. Your purpose is not to be like anyone else. So take that pressure off.

  Your purpose is to answer the unique calls of your soul every day. To allow what is falling away to fall. To allow what is rising to rise. No matter how much it excites or scares you. Simple.

  Perhaps it was because of the stubborn resolve of my ancestors, but when I was younger I was a really good long-distance runner. My strategy was always to start out strong and establish my lead. It was a combination of wanting to win and wanting to be away from everyone else in nature. I couldn’t stand running on top of other people. One race, at the last 800-meter mark we emerged from the bush and around a large field where people were cheering us on to the finish line. I knew the girl in second position was behind me, as I could hear people yelling her name. I made the mistake of looking behind to see where she was. The moment I did that, I could feel the natural flow of energy (Shakti) that was driving me begin to drain out of me. In that moment the race was lost because I was running to her beat rather than running to mine.